Steve
by leamur
Summary: Based several months after the events in the movie, the gang have had a grand summer of 'foraging'. Then, one sunny morning, a new character arrives in the woods from a very unexpected direction.


It was early morning and the sky was just beginning to lighten. The twitters of birds can be heard from the fading darkness above, as they rise early to greet the sun. RJ, Verne, Hammy, Stella, the Porcupines and the Opossums are slowly stirring back to consciousness. As they pass through their individual dreamlands back to reality, they imagine what the next day will bring, and it mainly centred on food!

As they dreamed their gluttonous thoughts, the hedge that marked the boundary between their world and that of the couch potatoes' began to rustle, but it was not loud enough to disturb any of the recumbent animals. It continued for a short while and then stopped. There was another burst of shaking and then silence.

Hammy stirred as the disturbance began to grow louder. He wearily sat up, still tired from gorging himself on cookies, orange juice and late night TV. The dream that he had just been having was a little odd, but he never could really tell whether he really was dancing the flamenco with flamingos by the pool. "I like my cookies" he murmured to himself, and all order was restored in his head. He gazed about with half open eyes and smacked his mouth noisily, as the thought of cookies made him hungry.

Determined to do something about this he picked himself up from his bed of stolen blankets, behind RJ's booster seat, and shuffled towards the stash of food at the log. He was as quite as he could be in his semi-conscious state, so as not to wake the others. With a broad smile on his face he tip-toed up to the log and quietly rummaged through the boxes for the cookies.

While the hyper-squirrel went about his hunt for the elusive cookies of the double-chocolate chip variety, the noises at the bottom of the hedge intensified. Hammy glanced over his shoulder at the rustling bush, but thought nothing of it and continued with the forage for his cookies. Suddenly the leaves around the foot of the hedge began to shake more vigorously, and curses of "damn bush!" and "I hate branches!" burst out from the shadows in short, painful yelps. Hammy froze.

"Hu-heh" the squirrel laughed nervously. He turned cautiously towards the dull-grey mass that was the hedge. "Steve you can't talk, you're just a bush!"

The commotion stopped and there was a long silence. In this time Hammy managed to convince himself that he was still dreaming, but this time the thought of cookies did not settle his nerves. "Where were the flamingos?" he thought and began to worry that it was real.

"But bushes can't talk" he reasoned and nervously turned back to finding the snack he wanted. He began to fiddle noisily with the boxes to take his mind off Steve. "Hey!" a voice called out, causing the poor delirious squirrel to jump in fright and dive into the stash. "Can you be quiet Hammy? Some of us are trying to sleep here!" Verne hissed. He lifted his head out of the food and laughed nervously. "S-Sorry!" he called back.

Picking himself out of the assortment of boxes and packets, Hammy found that the one that he had wanted had been right by him all the time. He skittishly grabbed the cookies and dived behind the log, hoping that Steve would not notice him there. Peering around the edge of his cover, he saw that the leaves had stopped moving. Everything was beginning to brighten as the sun started to drew closer to the horizon and he could see that there was nothing to be afraid of. "Stoopid Steve" he snorted, sinking back behind the log.

His panic over, Hammy finally settled down to eat the cookies. After his misadventure he decided that he would need a few of them to make him feel better, so he greedily stuffed several into his mouth. His cheeks were forced out into cookie shapes and he noisily began to crunch them up. "HAMMY!" Verne hissed again. "Sor-by" he replied in a shower of crumbs and tried to chew them more quietly.

"Psst!"

"Not now Steve, I'm eating" Hammy said after he swallowed.

"PSSST!"

"Steve!" he protested. "Can't you see I'm…"

The squirrel's eyes shot wide as it occurred to him what he had just said. This was not right, how could a plant talk? He was definitely awake though as there were no flamingos. Slowly he peered around the log, driven by an insane fascination to see if it really was Steve who had just spoke to him.

"Hey" the hedge called to him. "How did you know my name?"

"AH!" Hammy yelled and leapt out from his hiding place, sending cookies flying in all directions.

"Woah! I'm not going to eat you."

"AH! Steve's going to eat me!" he screamed and fled back into the camp.

"Crap" the hedge muttered.


End file.
